couple pics... post what your currently cutting

[Walnut Beast]

Nice! Looking forward to seeing the gold opened up!

[dustintheblood]

Well the gongshow of 2020 still haunts me, but on the bright side, work continues up north on the SPF monster mill rebuild.  On schedule and on budget.  Lakes still frozen and 2' of snow still in the woods last week.



 

 



Had a chance to blow off some steam while I was home from the hitch this past weekend, so did a technical drop cause no one else would do it.  It was 35C (95F) and bugs were atrocious, so when I was 40' up and 15' from the top of the crown, decided to "go for it".  Math in my head was that I could lay er down and miss the shed by a bit.

Video evidence shows it flying out and clearing the roofline by 6"....

Some days are good ones!







 




 

[dustintheblood]

NativeWolf, I do admit it would have been far cooler to barge your fancy new rig over and grab onto the stem!

Wouldn't have even needed to unload it  :D :D :D  Just rip it and ship it!!!

[Walnut Beast]

 

 

[nativewolf]

 I now know of 3 pine mills that have brought logging in house, no monster mills but small medium sized ones.  An interesting trend.

[nativewolf]

dustin :  Just how far north are you?  What's your role in that process and what's the decision making process on the reopen/rehab?

[nativewolf]

@Walnut Beast Maybe he should ask the Corbets why they were not getting paid more for the last 30 years?  I guarantee you that Eddie & Hunter and the rest are not hurting for money.  As to why Corbet packaging mill closed... the decline in the availability of raw material.  The raw material they wanted was sweetgum or tupelo for the veneer business they had off of Castle Hayne on Smith Creek.  Lets just say we knew the family.  

Everything was on a short term basis and the mill never did anything strategic to ensure a long term supply.  Instead of ensuring fiber supply the family and their friends subdivided lots for housing and cleared land for cukes, sweet potatoes and other things.  As a result VA mills are shipping sweet potato crates from Southside of VA down to Burgaw NC.  More short term forestry with no thought on supply or land management.  Different place, will have the same outcome.  

Not sure what Bobby was expecting when the Corbets clearly were not making any effort to stay in the forestland business nor had they ever paid him enough for him to have a rainy day fund.  Pender county is urbanizing, New Hanover had long since, Brunswick county has gone retirement haven...Myrtle Beach wannabes.  Instead of pine and sweetgum you have ...Kilns  Direct, retirement homes on black water streams, and sweet potatoes.  Bobby had a chance to regroup 4-5 years ago...he went the wrong direction.   In short...Bobby closing up is all on Bobby.  

[dustintheblood]

dustin :  Just how far north are you?  What's your role in that process and what's the decision making process on the reopen/rehab?

Hey Native....  North of Chibougamau Quebec.  I'm project manager / lead consultant.  The modernization is a full retrofit with a new HewSaw and bin sorting line.  A few years in development now, with a soft start in two months.

Home is SE Ontario (east of Ed, and south of Ishobie, and a bit north of Barge) lol

[Lebel Logging]

@nativewolf
I can't speak for bobby or anybody else but around here there are some really successful logger that park their iron because its too rough and they been doing this for sometimes 2-3 generation.
The mills that buys softwood around here have all the plant for a 350 km radius, and the public land wood is so cheap he keep the price low. When I see somebody that made a living logging successfully for over 30 years park is iron because of the raise of the fuel price and everyrthing, I think there is a problem. I know you are doing well and Im happy to see some people succeed. Its just not always bad decision.

[Southside]

Good to see you have remained humble in your success there Native Wolf. 

[newoodguy78]

I wish Bobby and any other person like him nothing but the best in times like these.  For years the type of raw materials they handle have been used by all of us. Once their production is removed from the supply chain things are are only going to get worse. 

[OntarioAl]

Bobby Goodson passed away a couple of years ago
Al

[Walnut Beast]

Just remember! No matter how good things can be going or how much money you have that different factors can change and effect the dynamics of a situation. Life and finances can change in the blink of an eye. I'm sure everyone knows somebody that has had everything or inherited everything and went broke. Some remained that way and some went on to build another fortune. Money is like water it can flow in your hands and flow right out. 

[doc henderson]

Al, I think it was a different Bobby Goodson.

[snowstorm]

i got a letter from cat parts prices to increase 15.5% starting june 1 

[newoodguy78]

How much have they increased already?

[olcowhand]

@newoodguy78  Happy Birthday!

[nativewolf]

@Walnut Beast :  That's very true.  Bobby had done well, sadly they doubled down when the mill owners were checking out.  When the Corbets are saying they can't get wood and Bobby knows they can't get wood and Bobby doubles down I don't know what to say.  New Hanover County had no more timber.  Pender county has been or is being converted to higher and better use 10 acre lots, and retirement places on black water swamps, Kiln Direct moved manufacturing there, population soared over the last 20 years as New Hanover built out.  Brunswick was next, they want to be Myrtle Beach North.  So much of the best forest have been converted to sweet potato and row crops or swine yards industrial pine plantations.  What's left was swamps and terrible longleaf pine (site index 50 at 50 type stuff).  


Bobby is upset, it's understandable but he's ranting about a situation that his longtime mill saw coming and responded by shutting doors late last year (but had been having troubles for a decade).  Why he thought he'd survive when Eddie Corbet wasn't seeing it I don't know, when it got really wet the Corbets only solution was to send Bobby back to the same high graded tract of timber (not many miles from my parents house) they'd high graded when I was a teen..they high graded every other year.  His real short term problem is he lost his bread and butter client.  However, it's not the only problem.  


Pender county had 18k people when I was a kid and that had been the norm for decades.  Now it is pushing 60k.  Farmers kept the farm land and sold land along the black water streams and creeks.  5 acres, 10 acres, etc.  Much of it was just cut up, if it could grow a pine it was converted or if it was great it was converted to crops.  When I was a teen we had a 50k acre fire that didn't burn across a road.  Now that same site is so cut up by roads that the largest fire they have is a few hundred acres.   Brunswick county went from small sleepy fishing villages to having 134k people.  I used to be able to drive 10 miles down a road there and not see a house or car.  Now every site that percs has something.  That's the world he lives in today.  It pushed all the big loggers into fewer tracts.  The land would get parceled up and cut, after he'd pull out the properties were all too often put on the market.  Especially the last 5-6 years, people buying land for a house that would have sold for $100 when I was a child now a lot at $100k.  I hate it, but that's where he is today.   For me it's personal.  That's home.  I saw it coming, my parents saw it coming, Corbets saw it coming, my Grandfather saw it coming (in 1970), boy scout leader saw it coming.  We all had different approaches.  My Granddad got involved in The Nature Conservancy and became head of the County, my parents sold the beach house and moved to countryside ( I planted the farm in long leaf pine for straw), my boy scout leader bought lots on the IC in Brunswick and Pender county,  everyone I knew agreed that development was coming like a steamroller.  

If you take a step back even further the bigger problem for him is that Pender County and Brunswick county have lots of very poor forest.  In many areas of NC he'd be able to harvest after 30 -40 years but not on a blackwater swamp, not on the longleaf pine ridges either.  He won't cut the swamps again, likely his children won't either.  The last time they were cut with steam boats and draglines and mules it was WWI.  Took almost 70 years to get back to a harvestable crop.  Won't be faster now.  By the time it's ready for harvesting the land will be so subdivided that harvesting will likely be impossible.  


Ironic thing to me is that the industry isn't supporting him-IP, Weyerhauser, West Fraiser or Canal could have been on Reality TV and garnered all sorts of advertising.  The answer of course is that industry doesn't care who brings the fiber to the mill, it just has to be the lowest cost and the most reliable. International Paper now owns the last mill my grandfather started- the Riegelwood plant, why aren't they there to "support" Bobby.  Because there are 46 groups buying timber in Pender County.  Including IP.  If 46 are buying how many are cutting?  46 now buying timber in a county with half as much timber acreage  as it had when I was a teen and 3x as many people buying.  Much of what is there is industrial pine plantations or public game lands with little to no harvesting.  


@Lebel Logging   We are not doing "well" financially.  Been working on just getting a loan for 3 years- saw tariff wars wipe out mills and buyers, had a banker pull a fraud on his bank that stopped everything for 6 months (ate reserves), spent several years proving business models, we continued to sign clients, son still leaves at home, we don't eat out and we work 6-7 days a week.   Not mechanical and have to fix stuff.  We just financed a piece of equipment which is not that big a deal but we're really tickled pink because we think it lets us scale and greatly reduces risk.  The only thing we're doing well is forestry..in that at least we're doing well and that's the passion and what is interesting.  Our client forests are great before and after we harvest. Our client forests are great before and after we harvest.  It's part of why I don't feel quite as much sympathy for anyone associated with Corbet.   The Corbets still own 50k acres  of mostly pine but the hardwood swamps they owned are basically gone forever from production; Bobby is parking equipment,  there's a lesson there for Bobby.   He might not like it but right now, today...at this very minute there is someone harvesting on a Corbett owned plantation and for IP.   I hope he regroups and figures out what he wants to do because someone else in that same county has figured they can keep cutting.   At least Bobby has had the good fortune to become something of a minor celebrity that will give him options others don't have like the loggers you are referencing up there.  

Hope we do well this fall.  

[nativewolf]

So we have trouble getting the whole tree in the pic, this little pocket of amazing poplar is sure fun for the Bear.  Need to become a better photographer.  

Going to invest in a sub meter GPS receiver so we can just record trees digitally; we tried tagging with aluminum tags and squirrels and other animals rip the tags off and peck at them.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the released trees grow over the next decade.  

 

I did something I've never done before:  I loaded my first truck with the Elephant.  No stress or hurry as the driver just left it parked so I could practice for a few days.  Brought out a bunkfulls and loaded the truck.  To be honest I'd rather be on the ground but oh well.  

[Skeans1]

@nativewolf why not just use Avenza maps or something of that nature to record your gps pins?

[Skeans1]

 

 

 Nothing like diving down a 25 degree slope on each side with 45 degree slopes on behind.

[barbender]

NW, that poplar looks awesome, it has to pile up fast!

[nativewolf]

There sure are a pile of logs on the trail there.  He had to hand cut a hole to start the felling.  

If you get tired of that gorgeous MN summer feel free to hop down to the heat of VA and do some forwarding.  I could sure use some pointers  :D

[Lebel Logging]

@nativewolf 
Your right I dont know what your finance look like and it was not what I wanted to says. Sorry for the misunterstanding. 
What I wanted to says is that the market a logger is in have a big influence on him. Sometimes a logger can take good decision and work as hard as he can but if the market and the expense explode he is in a bad position. I hope things will turn better for the forest industry every where.

[barbender]

NW, if I ever get caught up on sawing, firewood and some home projects I might take you up on that. I told my boss that I'm going to focus on my business now, I might still be able to help him out once in a while if he needs me. That was a hard step for me, I love it out in the woods but I have other things I want to do, too. I'm looking forward to hopefully not being stretched thin all the time😁